User blog:ThePurpleDragonNinja/MOCcing, the project and plans
=Having to deal with several computer and related hardware crashes has kept me off here for some time. To get back up to date, here's what I'll be discussing:= *The Reboot *MOCs *Projects *Building systems Now, onto the post! Reboot So far, it seems the Reboot is coming along nicely, but we lack motivators to promote the creation of new articles. Here are my suggestions: #Users can sign up to make one of a number of concepts, such as, to use a category that would be too generic for actual use, "Plant Monster". Depending on the quality of the article, they'd get some form of credit on their user page, such as one star for a good quality article, two for a truly exceptional article, and none if it is sub-par. #Every user is drafted into the same sort of project, having to create one out of a list (each list being assigned to a specific user) of those ideas within a set timeframe. Possible removal of a star from one's userpage if one fails to complete said article within that time frame. I'm more hesitant about this version than the other, as this might cause trouble when dealing with (temporarily) inactive users and even discourage new users from joining. Creations So, my hard drive doesn't work, which means I will either have to raise the money necessary or lose the creations stored there. In the meantime, while quite a few of my MOC pictures are now inaccessible to me, I've come up with some new ones. Pictures will be up ASAP. UPDATE: Recently, I discovered that I still had some of my pictures from before my hard drive crashed on my camera. The MOCs in question are Xenith, the inspiration for Collato Zenith, and the MOC I made of the Hero from the Eurobricks Hero or Monster contest banner a while back. MOCs 035.JPG|A group shot of the beasts MOCs 043.JPG|A Tail Beast making a remarkably spirited yet inexplicable attempt to eat Stormer. MOCs 037.JPG|Furno attempts to shoot at the Bulk Beast while Evo makes a run for it. MOCs 039.JPG|Meanwhile, Breez takes to the skies to defeat Flyer Beast. Breez's Brawler Mech is coming along nicely. I was going for a slightly feminine design with it, but it turned into something more resembling a bear with triple laser cannons. Whether they are actually laser cannons or stun dart cannons is up to you. MOCs 062.jpg MOCs 066.jpg MOCs 065.jpg MOCs 064.jpg MOCs 063.jpg Up next is my larger revamp of Evo's Walker. I consider the original to be a great set, what with its great value as a parts pack and original design, so I rebuilt it into a larger version, with two laser cannons instead of one. It vaguely reminds me of a giraffe when its legs are fully extended. The fully armored legs (both sides of the lower leg are covered) can extend an armor piece like a claw for better climbing. MOCs 091.jpg MOCs 090.jpg My rather pathetic attempt at coming up with a vehicle for Rocka resulted in a literal think tank called "the Strateeg-O-Mat". Seeing as it was basically a three-legged tower with a gun and an insanely long claw arm, its legs were scrapped to improve the next MOC on this list. Apart from that, it had two lasers on its back and two pockets full of missiles. MOCs 044.jpg MOCs 045.jpg Tail Beast is one of the hundreds of creatures that attacked Antropolis City. Before being disturbed, the Kaiju Nest used these creatures' wrecking ball-like tails to collapse particularly hard rock (which might injure Jaw Beasts attempting to further dig out the tunnels constituting the Kaiju Nest). For those who might want to know, my interpretation of Jaw Beasts has them using their heads to swallow and "process" massive amounts of rock, using their shovel-like claws to remove excess rock that would impede their movement. They have to build up a certain momentum before they can tunnel properly, though. Anyway, the Tail Beast's is 18 meters long in total, with twelve meters of spiked tail. It started out as a simple alternative build for Jaw Beast, before I added some pieces from Rocka's Stealth Machine. It uses the two claws on its sides for stabilizing, a necessity when a large part of your mass is at the end of what amounts to a fifth limb. MOCs 055.jpg MOCs 056.jpg MOCs 060.JPG MOCs 046.jpg|The Flyer Beast of the pair. MOCs 048.jpg MOCs 047.jpg MOCs 049.jpg MOCs 051.jpg MOCs 052.JPG|The "Bulk Beast" of the pair. MOCs 053.JPG My revamp of Splitter Beast is actually a combiner, using Flyer Beast as well. The two monsters, one a black-and-azure flyer, the other basically the original main Beast with the claws added onto him directly, combine to form one massive juggernaut. It can use its wings to deflect low-energy blasts, and to slow down falls. My backstory for these guys? One of these, the "Bulk Beast" of the team, digs out the tunnels with its claws, while the second unit helps deal with cave-ins, by constantly investigating the tunnel roof and walls, and reporting back to the Queen in case one actually happens. MOCs 084.JPG MOCs 085.JPG Magma Beast is a seperate species from the one that attacked Antropolis, not possessing the complex social and morphological modification system of the latter. It lives in magma lakes, volcanoes and other locations that are warm enough and possess the right minerals to enable the chemosynthesis upon which it relies. Its twelve limbs help it move quickly enough to avoid collapsing caverns and allow it to remove clumps of magma from it's shell as it hardens. MOCs 070.JPG MOCs 071.JPG MOCs 072.JPG MOCs 073.JPG MOCs 074.JPG MOCs 075.JPG MOCs 076.JPG Stormer's Freeze Machine got a bit bulkier, with the removal of the annoying armor add-on on its front, and the addition of an armor plate to the top balljoint. The hand arm is now a bit longer, the upper arms use basic torso shells as armor and the Freeze Blaster is upgraded a bit. Xenith was initially just a Breez 2.0 mod I did, before I decided to give him some backstory. In the original version of my canon, he was part of a special group of heroes (yup, just like half the grammar-less articles on this wiki), each of which possessed an experimental piece of tech for field testing. Think of them as the Men in Black to the Recon Team's CIA. Xenith's ability was short-range teleportation. By the time I had finished his XL form, intended as a Breakout MOC, Brain Attack was in full swing. Luckily for me, his claws were in just the right position to double as core locking clamps. Other weaponry includes the two plasma cannons, two battle-optimized Scout Drone variants, his two blades and a total of three or so pairs of Hero Cuffs. His back structure was a heavily modified version of Rocka XL's. And yes, he was where I got the idea for Collato Zenith. The Hero or Monster contest entry was a simple design. At the time I had already started working on several other projects, leaving me with a shortage of HF bones. As a result, I had to improvise when it came to his upper legs. I'm not too happy with this MOC. One of the issues I encountered was the fact that I'd assumed that the Brain Attack head came in tr. yellow, whilst the closest existing color was tr. neon green. I do like the blaster hand, though. MOCs 068.JPG MOCs 067.JPG MOCs 069.JPG I also made a Dragon Bolt hatchling MOC. At normal scale, it's about 1 meter long. MOCs 086.JPG MOCs 087.JPG MOCs 088.JPG MOCs 089.JPG Bonus pictures of Evo's mini-mech and a miscellaneous vehicle for Stormer. The latter started out with the idea of some sort of flame thrower, actually, even with the blue tank. Planned MOCs Here is what I'm planning to do, MOC-wise: As soon as the pictures of my current Beasts have been taken, I plan to make a large combiner of all the first wave Beasts. I may incorporate some parts from the mechs if that makes it look better and more imposing. As soon as I'm done with that, I'll put the finishing touches on Dragon Bolt, whose wings are three-quarters finished and his back legs being the only part of it that I haven't made. I may rebuild the claws on the front as well, so as to allow me to use the IfB claws. If I do not manage to get all of the money needed to restore my hard drive in time, I plan to use the funds I have ''earned by that time to make the following giants: GOJIRA (Giant Oversized Juggernaut Irradiated Reptilan Armageddon). A 1 meter 26 (4 feet+) or so version of Godzilla. Uses tr. light blue, grey and black bones (for its plates). It will be a part of my canon and will have size-shifting abilities. Massive versions of Jaw Beast and the Kaiju Queen. I have a lot of purple shell parts, and due to an order I've made, I will soon have even more. This will go into making Jaw Beast 1 meter 40, with a 34 cm head, which, at minifig scale, is large enough to eat ''a T-Rex whole. Further features may include four vestigial "limbs", demonstrating how the Beasts are all the same species. I may leave out those that form the Queen and the Tunneler's back legs, though, if they seem too awkward. The Queen is a project I hope to have finished and posted by Mother's Day 2015. I have difficulties figuring out how to make the giant crystalline wings, as the best way to do so would have been using the larger tr. light blue bones that Chima's Sir Fangar Ultrabuild would have been using. Now that it seems like the Chima Ultrabuilds have been cancelled, I will have to come up with alternatives. The cocoon used on her back will use azure and tr. blue bones for the top section, with black ones making up the lower part of it. Building Systems After reading BZP's current incarnation of the "Bring Back Bionicles" topic, I had an idea for a new action figure system. Basically, it's the Mixel system and the HF one combined. Mixel joints allow for a relatively large amount of detail on a small scale. However, to make each figure seem more imposing, the set system would be "minifig and vehicle/monster/scenery". This would make larger sets proportionally more imposing, allowing for truly threatening villains. To my knowledge, there's also a robotic SW lower torso piece that could be used for making the minifigs more complex. Now, this got me thinking; what sort of alternative action figure concepts have you guys come up with? Also, which of the following designs for GOJIRA's back plates looks the best to you? Please leave your choice(s) in the comments. Suggestions for other designs are also appreciated. MOCs 079.JPG|Design 1 MOCs 080.JPG|Design 2 MOCs 081.JPG|Design 3 MOCs 082.JPG|Design 4 MOCs 083.JPG|Design 5 Category:Blog posts Category:User:ThePurpleDragonNinja Category:Doorstoppers